


Dangerous Days

by statikos



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga), Devilman Crybaby - Fandom
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Kiss, First Time, Intersex Character, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 06:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13607502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statikos/pseuds/statikos
Summary: "It’s his own fault, in a way; putting power behind a downtrodden teenager’s frustrations and having it blow up in your face is something anyone could have predicted. So, maybe he’s not as much of a genius as he thought… or maybe he just wanted this to happen."Ryo Asuka decides to help his friend with his new demonic urges. It's notmeantto turn into an existential exploration of his own sexuality and body issues, and yet here he is.





	Dangerous Days

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the appropriately named "[Even Though Our Love Is Doomed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpcdAR9ij0)" by (the also appropriately named) Garbage.  
> I've been in a bit of a slump, and just needed to get this out of my system so I can get back to my other projects.   
> Thank you [hyperions](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperions) and [ClockworkCourier](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier) for your help with this.
> 
> Navigated a few minefields here and I tried to be as sensitive as possible, but since Ryo is a blunt piece of garbage it was a little tricky. There is very, very brief mention of non-con, and some minor gore that could be upsetting, but neither are explicit enough to warrant a full tag imo. Other than that--it's what it says on the tin.

Ryo knows his life is anything but normal, but this—pushed into a wall with his best friend holding him up by his hair—isn’t quite how he thought his evening was going to go.

Not that he’s _too_ surprised. Akira’s unpredictability _is_ predictable, now, and the past few days alone have been a rush of moods and impulses he might never have suspected of his friend before. It’s his own fault, in a way; putting power behind a downtrodden teenager’s frustrations and having it blow up in your face is something anyone could have predicted. So, maybe he’s not as much of a genius as he thought… or maybe he just wanted this to happen.

Akira huffs against his neck, then starts to release his grasp. Ryo thinks about it, a web of possibilities sprawling out from the single spark of thought in an instant, before one choice illuminates and the others fall away. His hand shoots up, covers Akira’s to squeeze his grip tighter around blond locks.

He kneels.

It’s over _very_ quickly. He doesn’t even get Akira’s pants off, just undoes them enough to release his cock, which is smearing clumsily over his face in the next instant. He grabs his hips, tries pointlessly to keep them still while he drags his tongue over his length—at first, he might have had some vague idea in his mind about teasing him, but that quickly proves useless. Akira’s _gone_ , knees buckling as he thrusts against Ryo’s tongue, his entire _face_ , and nothing Ryo does can make this slow or sensual or anything other than _desperate_. In the end, he barely gets him into his mouth. Akira grabs his hair again, gasping, and Ryo swears he doesn’t even make it an inch past his lips before he starts to come, moaning and rutting clumsily into the wet heat of his mouth until he’s spent. Which takes… a while. What Ryo really didn’t count on was how _much_ there was going to be.

His own legs are barely holding him up even at a kneel, so he lets himself drop when Akira pulls sloppily out of his mouth. There’s no point trying to wipe his face; he coughs a little when some of the mess starts to slide down his throat, but for now there’s nothing he can do but sit there, stunned. Above him, Akira braces against the wall with his hands, panting heavily, his eyes hazy. Ryo would think it was almost a little funny, if he wasn’t in an even more compromising state.

“Ryo…” Akira’s panting turns into ragged words. He starts to look down at him, and the fog starts to clear; but Ryo doesn’t realise what that means until Akira’s eyes start to go wide and brim over. “Oh, shit, I’m _so_ sorry…”

“It’s fine,” says Ryo, as calmly as he can, lips dripping. “Anyway, if you’re done—”

But Akira is already balking, legs wobbling as he clumsily zips up his pants and backs away from him. Ryo wants to reach out, hook a finger in his belt-loops and pull him back in, wind his arms around his waist and keep him there. But he doesn’t. He could. But he doesn’t.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry—”

It’s not until Akira has stumbled away from him and rushed out the front door, leaving a cold quiet behind, that the word finally falls from Ryo’s tongue.

“Wait.”

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk about it the next time they see each other, or the time after that. Not that Ryo thinks it’s necessarily over and done with; he sees Akira’s eyes lingering in places they didn’t before, or at least in places he didn’t notice them lingering before.

It doesn’t bother him, although it’s a little annoying when Akira zones out staring at him and doesn’t listen to whatever plan Ryo is trying to lay out for him. Talking slower doesn’t help, either; he can feel his gaze crawling around the edge of his mouth, reaching in toward the tip of his tongue. Sometimes, he talks slower anyway, and doesn’t particularly mind when he ends up having to repeat himself.

Except then there’ll be a moment of silence, and Ryo’s eyes will fall on Akira’s face—as they always do when there is nothing to draw them away—and he’ll see him flush guiltily, tucking his knees together and turning his head. At first, it’s sort of cute, but after a while, something about Akira’s pained expression makes Ryo’s chest hurt.

Finally, it’s too much. After the third consecutive evening of Akira squirming on the other end of the couch from him, he finally closes his laptop and gives him a hard look. “What’s wrong?”

Akira’s lip twists and he looks away. “Nothing.”

Silence. Ryo sees the nervous sweat beading on his forehead, the tension of his jaw and says—

“All right.” He opens the laptop again. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

The start-up screen hasn’t even finished flickering to life when Akira says, “Wait.”

Ryo doesn’t close the laptop, but he waits.

His heart starts to thud as Akira inches down the couch toward him, jeans squeaking softly against the leather. His hand tenses on the trackpad, his desktop icons populating the screen before him—a wealth of distractions, ways out. His eyes are still on the screen when Akira taps his shoulder.

He wants him to look at him. Ryo turns, heart thudding faster. “Yes?”

“Can…” Akira swallows anxiously. “Can we talk? Maybe?”

Since his transformation, Akira’s confidence has skyrocketed—it’s sort of rare to see him like this, now. In spite of a tiny, but insistant voice inside Ryo, protesting, he nods. “Sure. About what?”

He knows what.

“Um—the other day, when you… I…” Akira flushes darker than Ryo thought was even possible. “I just—I didn’t mean for—I don’t want you to think…”

“Oh, that. It’s all right,” says Ryo, quickly, a tightness already building in his throat. “I know. Don’t worry.”

Akira looks hurt to be cut off, but he nods sheepishly. “Okay. Thanks, I mean—”

“It won’t happen again.”

Ryo’s heart is racing, a panicky, fleeing rhythm. Cold adrenaline is soaking him from the inside out—he can actually feel the hair starting to rise on the back of his neck. He feels… wrong. What’s happening to him?

“Oh.” The cold, sick feeling starts to ebb away. Then Akira’s voice cracks and it’s back in an instant. “I—I’m sorry—I’m _really_ sorry.”

His chest feels like someone dropped a boulder on it. _What_?

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted—I’ve always wanted—and I couldn’t help it—”

_Couldn’t help it._

“Actually,” says Ryo, as something triggers inside of him, “it wasn’t you.”

Akira’s eyes widen and his hands clench in his lap. Ryo remembers, perfectly, one of those hands fisted in his hair, pulling his head back against the wall. He’d just showed up, around ten o’clock at night, and he’d slammed the front door so hard behind him it had bounced back open for a second before gravity carried it closed again. And he’d come up on Ryo so fast that all he’d seen as Akira grabbed him was a dark blur and light above it, the ceiling lamp burning bright around the shape of his head. He’d been a little surprised, but not scared. (He’s been expecting it on some level, ever since that day in the airport, figuring the time would come when Akira would finally blame him. Everything’s gotten worse since then.)

“You were about to let me go,” Ryo points out. “Right before I sucked you off.”

To his credit, Akira doesn’t flinch at the phrase like Ryo thought he might. Then again, he’s seen his search history. He’s still wrestling with something, though—he turns his face away again.

“Yeah, but—” He sighs heavily. “It’s just… I shouldn’t have.”

“Why?”

“I was out of control! I felt like I had to hurt something, or _fuck_ something, and I just—” His hands go up to grip the air, as if he’s trying to grab the Akira from a few days back by the arms. “I shouldn’t have treated you like that. Shouldn’t have… taken it out on you.”

Pause. “Why not?”

“Because! You’re my friend!” Akira exclaims. “I don’t want you to think I see you like that!”

“It’s fine,” says Ryo, though his chest is horribly clenched. “I know you don’t. So you don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“ _No_ ,” says Akira, firmer, “I mean, I don’t want you to think I see you like _that_.”

Another pause. “But I know you don’t.”

“ _Ryo_.” Akira’s voice is fraying at the edges, exasperated. Finally, Ryo dares to reach out and place his hand beside his thigh on the couch, where Akira seizes it desperately. “I’m saying—I’m saying I _wanted_ to do that with you. I _did_. Just _…_ not like that. Not that it was bad—”

Ryo blinks. It wasn’t?

“—but I wanted…” Akira’s grip on his hand is becoming crushing, but he doesn’t pull away. “I just wanted to do it properly.”

“Properly?”

“I…” Akira looks at him, and if he wasn’t crying before, he’s very close now. “I didn’t even kiss you.”

It’s Ryo’s turn to squirm. He clears his throat a little. “Oh.”

“Ryo…” Akira reaches over and clumsily takes him by the chin. “I _want_ to. Kiss you.”                                   

So, he does. Ryo doesn’t really believe in the world standing still for such things. He supposes technically, it doesn’t. Their hearts are still beating, the air still flows into their lungs and is squeezed back out again. And though Ryo’s apartment is up very high, he knows that outside is still the distant roar of cars and machinery and the other bangs and squeals of human industry. The lukewarm weather. The setting sun.

Nothing else goes away, but Akira is holding his chin in one hand and his numbing hand in the other, his mouth crushed inelegantly to his. It isn’t perfect or poetic—it certainly isn’t graceful. Ryo finds himself thinking that Akira isn’t a very good kisser, but at the same time his eyes close and his arms wind effortlessly around his neck, a hum rising in the back of his throat. Akira moves his hands and holds him, too, at once fierce and tender, an iron embrace applied softly, carefully.

It’s barely a few moments, but when their lips part Ryo is breathless, an ache rising in his chest. Akira is just looking down at him calmly, smiling, tears clinging to the corners of his eyes.

“Hey,” he says, bumping his nose to his. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” says Ryo, bumping back. “ _You_ are.”

“No.” Akira shakes his head, blinking the tears away. Ryo never understood why Akira always attributed his sensitivity to others so insistently. It’s fine to be sad—it’s normal. _He_ isn’t… but then again, he isn’t normal.

When Akira kisses him again, a clumsy effort to be reassuring, he thinks maybe he could forget that; he wants to, at least.

He wants the sounds of the world outside to fade away. He wants his body to fade away. He wants to feel him, just him, and not think about anything else for once.

But they don’t. It doesn’t. He doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

“I want us to figure out what triggers these surges,” says Ryo, after Akira destroys his coffee table for the second time. Akira responds by clawing at his own head. “They seem to build up, and you can only release them through violence, or—”

Akira abruptly turns toward him, daring him to finish the sentence.

“—sex, or other vices,” Ryo continues, undaunted, even as Akira moves closer. “It also appears to put your body through a lot of stress. This isn’t going to be sustainable.”

“I don’t care about that right now,” Akira growls, taking him by the shoulder.

Ryo jerks away, expecting him to let go—when he doesn’t, he just scowls back at him. “I know you don’t. I’m telling you at some point, we’ll have to deal with it.”

Akira’s other hand goes to his hip and pulls insistently. “We’re _dealing_ with it.”

_Not really,_ thinks Ryo, as Akira yanks him roughly backward against his chest. He just smiles and lays his head back against him almost lazily, staying icy-calm in the face of his heated state.

“It’s like that, huh?”

Akira bows his head needily into his shoulder. “Ryo… can you… I want…”

“You want me to help you out?” His hand slides back to rest on his waistband, a thumb hooking under. He feels Akira’s hips jerk toward him—he’s already hard. “You _need_ me to?”

“ _Please_ , Ryo, I—”

“I don’t know,” says Ryo, turning to face him with a sly smile, “you’ve been a very bad boy.”

Normally he wouldn’t think to say shit like that… but, once again, he knows Akira’s search history; and with the recent development in their relationship, he’s started taking more of an interest in his porn hits. If Akira watches something all the way through, or more than once, then Ryo watches it too. It’s been a remarkable insight. He never knew a fixed-perspective shot of a girl’s back bouncing up and down was so stimulating for some people. Or that there was any point at all in watching a video of a guy jerking off in a bathtub for five minutes.

Akira’s psyche is truly a fascinating place.

“Come on,” he says, gently, sliding his hands up Akira’s chest to cup the sides of his neck, thumbs rubbing soothingly. Akira’s head rocks back with a sigh. “Sit down. I’ve got you.”

One of Akira’s hands covers his anxiously, though his chest is already starting to heave. Ryo walks him around the broken coffee table and backs him into the couch. It’s easier said than done; Akira is _heavy_ with all his new muscles, and right now he’s so tense that Ryo has to push him along with more strength than he normally would. He doesn’t let it show on his face, though, just smiling up at him as he pushes him back onto the couch and climbs up into his lap. Ryo loops his arms around him, with a familiarity that’s only grown over the past week, and crushes their lips together firmly.

“Ryo…” Akira finally smiles again, warm against his mouth. He settles his hands on his waist and tugs their hips together with a relieved groan.

But for Ryo, it’s not so simple. Gradually, he trails his mouth down his neck and collar, starting to shift back in his lap and wriggle subtly out of Akira’s needy grip. He feels one of his hands pat clumsily at his thigh, as if wondering where he’s gone, a second before he slides out of his lap entirely and sinks onto the floor between his knees.

“Come back,” Akira whines, though his hand habitually finds the crown of his head, ruffling lazily through golden hair.

“I’m right here,” says Ryo, bowing his head to kiss firmly through the fabric of his straining jeans before he undoes them, nose nudging up the hem of his shirt. Normally, this drives Akira so insane he can’t do anything else, but this time, Akira reaches down to pull him up by the shoulders, trying to guide him back into his lap.

“ _Here_ ,” he says, and although he looks a mess—pupils wide, lips already glossy, breath practically steaming—there’s a purposefulness about him.

But Ryo doesn’t sink down on the lap he’s guided into. This isn’t what he planned—he was just going to get him off again, with his mouth or his hands like usual, it was going to be fine, everything would be—

“Don’t be afraid,” Akira says, when he tenses. His hands tug at the hem of his shirt, and Ryo can tell he’s barely restraining himself. “I’m not going to… to hurt you or anything.”

That’s not the point. He hasn’t told him. He doesn’t want to.

“I know,” says Ryo, unable to meet his eyes. He smiles again, tucks his head into his neck, laying appeasing kisses over his throat. “I want to do it like that. Let me.”

“But—” Akira’s hand slides under his shirt hungrily, impulsively—Ryo actually feels his wrist lock and pull back as he stops himself. It’s not that which gets him, though; it’s his eyes, gazing dolefully at him. “You always get me off. And I’ve never—”

“You don’t have to,” says Ryo, quickly. “It’s fine. I don’t need it.”

Akira’s jaw clenches; he’s thinking. Ryo isn’t really sure what there is to think about, though. He can listen to Ryo and get a blowjob, or, alternatively, if he can’t accept it then he’s strong enough to just take whatever it is he wants from him, and Ryo will just have to deal with it. It’s a harsh thought, but a possibility if his friend doesn’t keep a good enough handle on Amon—he wouldn’t hold it against him. Ryo doesn’t think it will come to that, though; and sure enough, Akira is too horny to be able to agonise about it for very long.

“I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable,” Akira says, finally, and lifts his hands off Ryo’s hips. Ryo slides back onto the floor in front of him with a smile, but Akira places his hand on his forehead to stop him leaning in right away. “But… will you tell me why?”

Ryo hesitates. He kisses his palm. “Another time.”

“Is it that you’re not, like, into me? Or…?”

At that, Ryo almost laughs. If there were words for what it is Akira does to him—the way he looks, the way his skin tastes, the way his sweat smells, the sound of his voice thinning when he gets close—he still might not be able to say them.

“ _Akira_.” Ryo smiles up at him, swats his hand out of the way and tugs his underwear down with his teeth by way of answer. “Another time.”

 

* * *

 

It’s another time, but Akira isn’t there.

Ryo wakes up and it’s two in the morning. He can’t remember dreaming, but his skin is clammy and his heart is pounding and when he tries to cast his mind back, all he can see is a bright, white light. It would be more unusual if it were the first time; as it is, he’s used to it, and has been ever since he can remember.

In any case, he knows he isn’t getting back to sleep, so he slides out of bed and goes to take a shower. He pauses in the middle of taking off the loose shirt and underwear he fell asleep in and suddenly stares at himself in the mirror.

Is this what Akira would see, if he looked at him? Ryo has never been particularly hung up about the way his body looks, but he’s nowhere near oblivious enough to think it’s normal. Akira might have taken baths with him when they were kids, but that was different. They hadn’t exactly been staring at each other’s junk; Akira had no reason to realise he had both sets.

His reflection looks like another person, an imposter from another planet standing naked in his bathroom. Ryo lifts his hand absently to his chest, feels the red mark on his side where his breasts were bound too long. He cups one of them, squeezes it loosely. He doesn’t hate them, but what’s the point of them, exactly? They don’t jiggle every time he so much as breathes like the girls in Akira’s videos, but they don’t have the decency to be unnoticeable either. They’re just small, unsexy swells that he keeps compressed under his shirts and occasionally contemplates getting rid of for the sake of convenience; he could certainly afford it.

At least his dick is normal. There’s just the minor complication of it having a vagina behind it. Ryo’s looked into it, and to have both is rare enough—for both to be apparently entirely complete, and presumably functional? Not so much. He’s just glad he doesn’t menstruate; but hell, he’s sixteen and enough of an anomaly as it is, so banking on that probably isn’t a good idea either.

It doesn’t bother him, he thinks, still staring into the mirror. It’s starting to steam up, until he can only see a misty outline of himself in the shimmering glass. He’s barely even thought about it as he’s gone about his life, never even really had any confusion about who he was or how he wanted to be read. He’s Ryo, a man, a “he”, and what his body looks like under his (designer) clothes doesn’t matter.

What if it mattered to Akira, though?

Ryo tells himself it wouldn’t. Akira doesn’t care about race or gender or creed; Akira cares about _everyone_ , even if they don’t deserve it. Akira stands up for everyone, too, especially the outcasts, since he’s one himself. Besides all of that, Akira watches porn of men _and_ women, so that’s probably not an issue either. On every argument, Ryo can persuade himself intellectually that Akira will accept him no matter what he looks like; besides that, everything in him is crying out to be closer to him in every possible way.

It just doesn’t change the way he feels.

He doesn’t want to show him. Doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t want this to turn into some big sob-session about how different he is and how scared he was that Akira wouldn’t like it. Doesn’t want Akira to stop seeing him as cool, confident Ryo who doesn’t give a shit about anything.

He doesn’t.

The water pours over his head, too hot. He lets it scald him.

It doesn’t change anything.

It doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

“ _Ryo… I know I’ve been kind of… out of control, lately. What I’m saying is… you don’t have to do this for me if it makes you… um… uncomfortable._ ”

“It doesn’t,” Ryo whispers.

“ _Fuck, that’s not right…_ ” A fumbling pause. “ _Hey, Ryo, can we talk about… augh, damn it, Tako!_ ”

There’s a clatter that Ryo assumes is the Makimuras’ cat knocking something off Akira’s bedstand. A few moments later, Akira’s voice resumes.

“ _…I’m sorry, Tako, I didn’t mean to yell._ ”

Next to Ryo’s head on the pillow, his cellphone casts a pale blue light on the ceiling, and Akira’s voice crackles out of it, warm and rough all at once. Closing his eyes, Ryo sighs.

“ _Damn it, what am I gonna say?_ ” He hears Akira groan and flop back against his bed. “ _Uhh… hey, Ryo, I just wanna say that you’re my best friend, and I respect you…_ ”

“It’s okay. I know,” says Ryo, to someone who can’t even hear him.

“ _And I just want you to know that like… just because we’re friends, it doesn’t mean you_ have _to help me with—o-or like, we’re friends… so if I do something you don’t like, d-don’t feel like you can’t… say something? Augh, but he_ would _say something! Right?”_

Ryo smiles. “Right.”

“ _Ugh. Or how about: if we’re gonna fool around, I don’t want you to feel like I’m not considering you. O-or more like… I_ want _to consider you._ ” A long pause. “ _Fuck, you’re already_ so _…_ ”

He doesn’t always listen in on Akira right before he goes to sleep, but lately he does it more than he cares to admit. It’s not as if Akira doesn’t know that Ryo’s bugged his phone—maybe he expects to be listened to. Ryo doesn’t know. He’s never asked, but Akira’s never seemed surprised when he’s brought up his search history or things he’s said in range of his phone when Ryo wasn’t around.

“ _Ryo …_ ”

So maybe he doesn’t mind. Maybe it even turns him on a little bit.

“ _Want you… wanna… oh…_ ”

And maybe he wouldn’t mind if Ryo was turned on by it too. He wouldn’t mind if his stomach was already in knots just hearing his hitching breath through the phone line—not seeing him touch himself, but _knowing_.

“ _Nn, Ryo…_ ”

And if it’s him that Akira thinks about when he jerks off, why shouldn’t he think about him, too? In the past, Ryo didn’t really indulge in masturbation at all, but he’s come to realise that he simply didn’t have the right inspiration. Namely: when he imagines Akira’s hands in place of his own, something that used to feel perfunctory and awkward is suddenly anything but.

One of his hands tightens in his own shirt and he claws it up clumsily (like Akira would, he thinks), leaving his stomach exposed. Even that, coupled with the sound of Akira biting back moans on the other end of the phone, is enough for him to find himself wet and half-hard when he finally shoves his pants down around his thighs and dives his hands between them.

He doesn’t know how Akira would touch him here. Ryo’s best guess is that he’d have a fair understanding of how to jerk a guy off, but he wouldn’t have much idea what to do with anything else Ryo has. He’d probably drive his fingers in deep and clumsy, like this, ignoring his clit—and it wouldn’t matter because it would be _him_ , and he’d be graceless but so enthusiastic and so _earnest_. He’d jerk him off a little too fast, too—Ryo isn’t sure that he’s quite replicating it, but the pace he’s imagining is a little more frenetic than he can actually keep up with himself. Akira wouldn’t know how to tell when he was getting overstimulated, not at first—so he’d rub him past that point until his voice was cracking and his hips were jerking uselessly against his hand.

“ _Ryo—Ryo-chan…_ ”

Then he’d say something soft and stupid and sweet… just like that, just when it got too much. When he comes, back arching off the bed with a sated sigh, Ryo’s eyes are suddenly stinging with a feeling he can’t name. In the dizzy aftermath, his heart is racing, his mind reeling. Slowly, Akira’s moans come back into focus, reaching a fever-pitch and then—

“ _A-aah… oh,_ oh _—gah! No, nonono!_ ” He hears a thrashing sound as Akira tries—and, apparently, fails—to somehow contain his climax. There’s a pause, then a long, frustrated sigh. “ _Ugh, not again…_ ”

Ryo lays his hand over the phone like he might Akira’s chest. _It’s okay._

With the satisfaction ebbing out of him, though, he wonders again: _is_ it okay?

 

* * *

 

He watches Akira kill a little girl.

Rather, he watches Akira kill a demon who has _possessed_ a little girl. Not that it makes a difference to Akira. Afterwards, he’s inconsolable, trying to dig her out of the demon’s misshapen body with his bare claws until they’re a bloody mess.

“Akira!” he calls out, lowering his camcorder. A hunk of flesh flies toward him and splats against the front of his coat, leaving a sickly yellow stain down the front. “Stop it! She’s dead.”

Akira keeps digging, tears streaming down his face. “But—I have to—”

“You can’t save her,” Ryo says, finally daring to step into his range. He sees Akira’s—Devilman’s—wings trembling as his shoulders rack with sobs. “There’s nothing left to save.”

“She was just a kid,” Akira’s hands stop moving, and he bows his head solemnly toward the mangled corpse. Then he whirls on him. “Ryo, why didn’t you tell me she was just a kid?!”

“It’s a demon,” he replies, standing his ground. “If we hadn’t come after her, she would have hurt people. Would it be better if we let her live? Go to school like that? Hurt other kids?”

“ _No,_ ” Akira sobs, “but there had to be another way—we could have gotten through to her, somehow, helped her…”

“There’s no other way. She wasn’t strong enough.” Ryo watches him pick up the body and cradle it in his arms. He’s still crying, but soundlessly now, tears rolling down his cheeks and splashing onto the vanquished enemy. “I’m… sorry.”

While Akira weeps, Ryo stands in the mouth of the alleyway where they cornered the demon and keeps watch, looking down at his phone occasionally to review the list he’s compiled of suspicious individuals. With a sigh, he flicks a few of the younger targets down to the bottom of the list. Sure, they’re technically a higher risk to society, given that children are more likely to have weak impulse control and general emotional fortitude, as well as their likelihood to regularly attend some sort of schooling where they’ll be in contact with large numbers of relatively defenceless prey. But if Akira can’t handle hurting even one kid right now, then at the very least he’ll need to cut his teeth on a few more teen delinquents and sleazy businessmen before Ryo can try working him up to it again.

To Ryo, there’s no significant difference between the little girl and the banker they took out last week, except that it was slightly less surprising that the banker had opened himself up to possession, given that he’d been a closet sex offender.

Not that it should matter, Ryo thinks. They’re all demons; some of them just have more obviously ‘bad’ hosts than others. Akira should be taking all of them equally seriously.

He looks back at him once the sobs have died down a little, holding out his hand. “Akira. Come on. We need to go before someone finds us.”

Akira hesitates, but slowly lies the girl down on the ground. By now, she really does look like a girl again, although her body is still a bent and bloody mess; the demon’s body seems to have shrivelled away until it looks like a thick, black cocoon clinging loosely to her tiny form. Akira keeps looking at her for a long time. Finally, he looks up at Ryo despairingly. “We… can’t just leave her like this.”

Ryo is already starting to move off. “Why not?”

“Because it’s _wrong_!” Akira cries, furiously. “We should at least bury her or—or something!”

A strange, savage thought rises to the top of Ryo’s mind: _why bother?_ Now that she’s dead, she’s dead. No amount of prettying it up will change that. It would make more sense to burn the body and sprinkle the ashes off a pier somewhere. Minimise the evidence. Make it take longer for her family and friends to figure out if she was dead or simply missing. That’s the safest and most pragmatic option for _them_.

He doesn’t say any of that to Akira.

(Wonderful, kind, stupid Akira.)

He says, “Fine. Wait there.”

He goes back to the motorbike and opens up the seat, rips open the fresh first aid kit he’s stashed in the compartment. He tugs on a pair of surgical gloves and a mask—he isn’t sure how much good it’ll do, they’ve already left far too much forensic evidence here—and the pack itself, and storms past Akira to where the girl is lying crumpled on the ground.

He wastes thirty minutes of his life cleaning blood and gore off the skin and hair of someone who’s already dead. When she’s presentable from the neck up, he turns around to look at Akira. He’s holding something; a torn bookbag, abandoned in the alleyway when the little girl transformed.

Holding it with his bare hands, of course. Ryo sighs inwardly. It doesn’t matter; if he’s right, then the police and government have already been infiltrated, anyway, and they’ll do their best to keep this quiet. That doesn’t mean they won’t come after the two of them, though. Nonetheless, he holds out his hand for the bookbag, and puts it under the girl’s head like a pillow, folding her hands solemnly over her chest.

It's not a burial, but at least she has a little more dignity than before.

When he stands up, Akira is no longer Devilman… and he’s crying again. In spite of everything, Ryo could slap him. He can’t believe how much time they’ve wasted—and all because Akira cared too much about some stupid kid that was going to die anyway.

“Ryo,” he chokes, opening his arms, “thank you.”

In spite of himself he steps into Akira’s arms, lets them fold around him, and wonders why he even wants to touch him. Him—wearing human and demon blood uncaringly on his pure white coat, feeling nothing more than a distant irritation over having to get it dry-cleaned.

They ride home in the dark on the motorbike, Ryo on the back with his arms around Akira’s middle. Though there’s nobody around, if he opens his eyes he can’t stop himself from taking in every light in every window, every candy wrapper and soda can glinting out from where they’re trod into the sidewalk; but he finds that if he closes them, and lays his head between Akira’s shoulder blades, then all he knows is the steady throb of his heart below the roar of the motor and the rush of the wind.

When they stop outside Ryo’s apartment, Akira reaches down and puts his hand over Ryo’s where it’s still clasped around him.

“Thank you,” he says, again.

“For what?” says Ryo, starting to dismount. Then, “Don’t worry about it.”

“And I’m sorry,” Akira blurts out, before Ryo can walk away. “For blowing up.”

Ryo pauses on his way to the door and says, “I’m sorry, too. I should’ve told you it was a kid.”

Turning off the motor, Akira gets off the bike as well and comes to his side, laying his hand easily on the small of his back. “Can I walk you up, Ryo?”

A knot of trepidation tightens in his stomach, but he nods.

Once they’re inside, Akira kicks off his shoes, then takes his coat off for him (which makes Ryo feel like a very large doll, though he doesn’t protest). He motions with his head toward the laundry room and to his own gore-splattered clothes, and Ryo nods again. In response, he immediately rips his shirt off over his head, and is already struggling out of his pants on his way to the washing machine.

Watching him hobble away with the first hint of a smile he’s worn all day, Ryo follows him slowly, sidling up to the doorframe and watching his now-naked friend stuffing his clothes into the washing machine before fumbling on the shelf above for the washing powder; he almost upends the box on himself before he catches it with a little yelp.

He doesn’t laugh, but he must have made some sound, because Akira turns to look at him, first surprised, then expectant. Ryo realises he’s looking up and down at his clothes.

“Oh,” he says. “It was just my coat, really—it’ll need to be dry-cleaned, but…”

Akira’s head tilts very slightly. He doesn’t ask, doesn’t push… but Ryo gives in anyway.

“…Fine.”

He takes off his outer shirt, and Akira doesn’t seem fazed to see the compression shirt underneath; at least, not at first. Then Ryo peels it up slowly—he realises he’s holding his breath—and stops with his shirt up to his armpits, breasts exposed. He takes a careful look at Akira’s face.

He blinks, and his eyes go a little wide, but he doesn’t say anything.

Ryo throws his shirts into the washing machine from where he’s standing at the door. Akira hasn’t looked away from him, but Ryo can’t discern his expression. His heart is thundering as he goes for his belt. It clicks off, his pants go down, and he swallows the huge lump of panic forming in his throat before taking his underwear off, too.

For the first time since they were children, he’s naked in front of his best friend.

Akira says, “Oh.”

Ryo can’t tell what kind of “oh” it is. Is it a bored “oh”? An interested “oh”? A “what the hell is that?” “oh”? He has no idea what his own reaction must look like. He feels like the entire high-rise apartment block has simply vanished beneath his feet, and that he’s plummeting down, down, down—

Akira walks up to him slowly, holds his arms out, and embraces him. When Ryo goes stiff in his arms, he rubs his back, buries his face in his hair and nuzzles him, kisses the top of his head until he softens again. It’s not like anything else Ryo has ever felt. He’d expected that this moment would involve a lot more sweating and grabbing and moaning. But Akira’s not even a little hard—he’d know, because they’re sandwiched together so tight. When he realises that, his heart jolts again. Now that he’s seen him, maybe he’s just not—

“You’re beautiful,” Akira whispers into his hair. Ryo feels his tears rolling off his crown. “Ryo, I can’t believe… just can’t believe how _beautiful_ …”

As he stands there in his arms, Ryo’s knees start to tremble. Unprompted, Akira grips him tighter, keeps him standing. They kiss in the doorway of the laundry room; not passionately, not desperately, just deep and slow and soft. When their lips part, Akira bends his knees slightly and scoops Ryo up in both arms, cradling him tight against his chest.

Ryo always thought the idea of someone sweeping you off your feet was kind of bullshit—and it just literally happened to him. The bad news is that he actually kind of liked it. The worse news is that he’s so breathless he can’t even think of a cynical remark for the situation.

“What _is_ this?” he manages.

“Can I stay over?” asks Akira. He kisses his forehead, as if he simply can’t bear _not_ to kiss him for more than a few seconds. “Please?”

They don’t have sex. What actually happens is even stranger than that; Akira just wants to _look_ at him. Not in a horrified, confused way—not even in a perverse way. He just spends hours lying face to face with him, stroking lazily up and down Ryo’s side, tentatively exploring his chest with careful hands and kneading gently at his hips.

Ryo’s not turned on, exactly; it feels somehow deeper than that. The way Akira’s touching him is almost reverent. He knows it means something, but not quite what—once or twice, he opens his mouth to ask, only to find Akira leaning in to kiss him, or himself moving to do the same.

For the first time, the rest of the world goes quiet; no background noise at all, no permeating knowledge of everything that continues to exist outside this embrace.

It’s just him.

Just them.

He wakes up with Akira wound around him, face in his chest. He’s a little too warm, and there’s an elbow in his stomach, and one of his legs has gone numb where Akira’s leg is draped over it.

He doesn’t care.

He goes back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

When they wake up properly, it’s just past noon and Akira is technically skipping school, but Ryo isn’t going to bring it up if he isn’t. He’s been too busy watching the sunbeams dance along Akira’s bare side through the bedroom window. White light glowing off tanned skin. Watching his ribs rise and fall. Wondering if it’s real. Warmth in his chest when he realises it is.

Akira opens his eyes blearily… then sees him, and smiles, and reaches out clumsily to lay his hand on his cheek. “Hey.”

They lean in and kiss again lazily, Akira drawing him in with a firm hand on his back. Ryo melts into his front, lips parting easily under his tongue, feels Akira’s laugh vibrating into his mouth when their teeth click together. He wonders if Akira can feel him smiling, what his thoughtless hums and sighs of content feel like against his skin.

Nakedness doesn’t seem to matter when Akira rolls onto his back and pulls him on top of him in a warm bundle, still kissing him, hands streaming tenderly through his hair and down his back and winding around his neck. Ryo’s breath catches when he feels Akira’s thumb stroke firmly along the vulnerable hollow of his throat, pushing briefly against his pulse. But he’s not squeezing, not choking, just _feeling_ , feeling all of him.

They kiss like that for ages, naked and wound around each other, until Akira suddenly takes Ryo’s hips and shifts them firmly against one of his thighs until Ryo gasps with the friction, feeling his cock growing hard against his skin. Akira’s is returning the favour—but again, he doesn’t push. In fact, after a moment, he lifts Ryo’s hips up a little bit, so they’re not in contact any more, nudges his nose to his face until Ryo lifts his head to meet his eyes.

He kisses him softly. “Now?”

“Yeah,” says Ryo, grinding his hips down again decisively, “ _now_.”

And Akira’s hand is back on his hip, the other on his ass, feeling him up firmly as they roll into one another, erections grinding clumsily together. It doesn’t feel like any other time they’ve fooled around; normally, Akira is so heated that he can’t concentrate on anything except fucking himself out on the nearest available source (generally, Ryo’s face), but right now he seems weirdly lucid, even when he’s groaning and teething into Ryo’s shoulder.

More than that, Ryo feels him responding to cues he didn’t know that Akira was so sensitive to. Again, though, Akira’s empathy is imperfect—he can sense pain, but not its meaning. So, when he squeezes Ryo’s breasts in both hands and Ryo flinches, he lets go completely… and Ryo has to grab his hands and put him back there, show him he can squeeze and knead and even pinch if he wants to. After that it doesn’t take long for Akira to lose composure and flop him onto his back, diving down to press his face between them and finally close his mouth over a nipple, sucking until Ryo’s back arches and he actually _does_ have to reach down and pat his shoulder to tell him to stop.

When he does, Akira stops and lays his head down on his chest, smiling up at him adoringly with dizzy eyes and wet lips. Ryo feels that overflowing feeling in his chest again, and when he fidgets as if to dislodge it, Akira takes him by the hand and kisses it.

“Don’t cry,” he says, nuzzling into his palm.

“I’m not,” Ryo responds. But for once, Akira isn’t crying either. He looks happier than Ryo ever remembers seeing him.

“Can I…?” Akira’s hand slides down between his legs, hovers over his cock and then dips lower. Ryo swallows. “I—I don’t have to.”

“Do it,” Ryo barely manages to say, and in split-seconds Akira’s fingers are parting his folds in clumsy, fervent strokes. He can’t help it—he has to choke back a squeak.

“Oh, my _god_ …” Akira’s fingers slide faster, still not pressing in. “You’re _soaking_ , Ryo…”

_Whose fault is that?_ Ryo thinks, but can only sigh shakily in response.

Smiling, Akira trails his fingers in lazy circles, bumping against his clit once or twice but not lingering; just feeling out the heat of him, starting to dip just gently deeper. “You want me to?”

_What the fuck do you think?_

Ryo whispers, “Fuck yeah.”

There’s no resistance at all when Akira’s fingers curve in, thicker and longer than his own. But Akira’s eyes go a little wide and he moans like he can _feel_ what he just did to Ryo, his jaw going slightly slack as he starts to finger him, slowly and clumsily at first until Ryo lifts his hips a little and shows him—and then he just fucks him desperately with his fingers, other hand holding him by the hip, and Ryo is all shudders and gasps and hands gripping tightly in the sheets.

He’s never come like this before, but he’s just about to when Akira abruptly stops, tugging his fingers out of him with a wrecked groan. Ryo’s hips grind pointlessly into the air; his voice comes out in a meek growl. “What the _fuck_ … why did you…?”

“I want… I gotta…” Akira looks at him and Ryo gets the message pretty quick, even as Akira leans down to kiss him again firmly, pressing chest-to-chest with him. He can feel his cock dragging hot and heavy against his thigh, already leaking. “Lemme fuck you, Ryo, _please_ …”

Ryo’s heart is battering the inside of his rib cage so hard he feels like he’s going to pass out. But he looks at Akira, wrecked just from kissing and grinding and fingering him, and he smiles, hugging him against his chest, wriggling underneath him and winding his legs around his. Akira relaxes, if only a little, and nuzzles thankfully into his neck when Ryo strokes his hair.

“I want you to know…” Ryo has to pause when Akira’s breath against his neck makes him shiver. “I don’t think of this as an obligation.”

“A wha…?” Akira is drooling a little on his neck, but Ryo needs to get this out of his system.

“I want this,” he says, more simply. “I want you.”

Akira is still hesitating, so Ryo hooks his legs around his waist and pulls him firmly against him.

“So _fuck me_.”

That’s all the trigger Akira needs. It’s not complicated, at the end of the day—people have done it for as long as they’ve existed, just like almost every other creature on earth. Sex isn’t special or new; at least, Ryo never thought it would feel like that. When Akira slides into him, clumsy and wanting, he thinks maybe he was wrong.

“ _Ryo_ …”

He can’t speak; every time they move together his voice gets caught in his throat. He arches up against him instead, legs wrapping tighter around him.  They’ll never be as close as Ryo wants them to be—but they can at least be as close as physically possible.

“It’s so good, you feel so good—”

And _he_ feels so good, pressing into him thick and hard and perfect, over and over. Ryo feels like he’s being broken open at every level, painlessly, blissfully, his contents laying bare for Akira to lap up.

He knows Akira isn’t going to last long, because his hips are starting to move faster and clumsier, and he’s already making that little whine he always does when he’s close. (It’s the cutest fucking thing Ryo has ever heard.) But he can feel Akira forcing himself slower, sees his teeth gritting as he holds himself back for his benefit.

“Don’t,” he manages to gasp, reaching up to cup his face. One of Akira’s hands grabs his chest again in clumsy response. “You don’t… have to hold on. It’s fine, it’s… I’m…”

“Ryo,” Akira groans, crushing their lips together bruisingly. “Ryo-chan, Ryo…”

Akira’s other hand goes down between them and curls around Ryo’s cock where it’s lying flat against his stomach. He barely even strokes it, but he fucks him harder, faster, until Ryo wants to open his mouth and say ‘wait’ because it’s too much, too good. No sound comes out; by the time he can speak, even simple words like ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘more’ are coming out distorted. The rest of the noises coming out of his mouth are too obscene for words, but luckily Akira is no better.

His face over his is blurry and bright and beautiful and Ryo thinks they’re kissing but he doesn’t know because a few moments later he feels _so much_ that he stops feeling anything at all, his mind going white as he comes harder than he ever has in his life, shuddering from head to toe.

He blinks. Sees Akira’s eyes go wide with awe in the seconds before he follows him, gushing inside him so hard that Ryo can even _hear_ it.

He blinks. Feels Akira slump, laughing against his chest, a giddy weight. A warm blackness blooms behind his eyes and gives way to an endless white light.

He blinks. Salty tears dripping onto his face, an anxious hand cupping his jawline, stroking.

“ _Ryo_? Ryo, I’m so sorry… Ryo, what did I do?”

Ryo comes back to himself, shaking hard. He’s not on his back any more—Akira’s sitting up, cradling him in his lap, and the two of them are still naked and laughably slick with sweat (and other fluids, Ryo realises, when he moves his thighs apart slightly and finds the entire surrounding area soaked).

When Akira sees his eyes open, he squishes him so tight against his chest that Ryo winces. Once the feeling comes back into his limbs, he pushes gently at Akira’s chest to make him give him some room.

“Did I… pass out?” he asks. Akira nods tearfully, but Ryo laughs. “Did you _really_ fuck me so hard I passed out?”

“I… I…” Akira’s still crying, but he’s cracking a smile now, sobs turning into giggles as he leans in to kiss Ryo’s forehead. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to, you were just… so amazing and…”

“Don’t,” says Ryo, firmly. “Don’t you dare apologise to me for that.”

Swallowing another sob, Akira nods again. Then he reaches out and strokes the hair back from Ryo’s face; pauses; brushes under his eye with the pad of his thumb.

“Ryo,” he whispers, “you’re crying, too.”

Before he can contradict him, Ryo feels a hot tear roll down his cheek. But why? There’s nothing to be sad about; he’s happy. Happier than he can ever remember being, happier than he thought was even possible.

There’s no need to cry right now, so why…?

“Yeah,” he says, “I guess.”

“It’s okay.” Akira hugs him against his chest again. “Don’t be afraid.”

Ryo doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s never afraid. He never has been.

“I’m not,” he says, as Akira lays him down gently on the bed again and snuggles up to his back, nosing into his shoulder.

“You know what’s funny, though?” he mumbles, already sounding half-asleep again. “I think Amon is kinda afraid of _you_.”

“Maybe he should be,” Ryo jokes.

(But he’s not really joking.)

“Don’t be afraid,” Akira repeats drowsily, breathing the words into his skin.

“I’m not,” Ryo says again.

(But he’s not sure.)

The only thing he’s afraid of is this being over; of losing him, forever.

So here in his arms, there’s no reason to be afraid.

Is there?

(There isn’t.)

Is there?

(There will be.)


End file.
